


princess royal

by museme87



Series: winter's queen [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Babies, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 23:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12046857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/museme87
Summary: The birth of Jon and Arya's fourth child.





	princess royal

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct follow-up to my (still incomplete, but finished soon) winter's queen in spring fic. This is also the first in a collection of fics taking place in this 'verse. You should read winter's queen before reading this. This fic doesn't spoil anything for the remaining chapters that have yet to be written.
> 
> The ladies over in Jonrya chat were getting all angsty tonight, and I needed something light after that conversation.

The first pangs begin when she is in the library with Samwell, keeping him company as he studies Northern lineages for a reason she has not committed to memory. Arya knew it was coming soon; she was too swollen, too tired, too aching for it to be anything but her time approaching. Bringing her hand to her large belly, she presses her palm into contracting muscles as if it might alleviate some discomfort. It does not, and she is grateful that discomfort is not quite yet pain. The pain will come soon enough.

Samwell must notice the movement, must notice how her brow furrows and her lips purse. He says her name, and the question is implicit. They have all been waiting anxiously for this.

Arya nods. “But don’t tell Jon. Not yet.”

They had been overjoyed to find they would have a daughter at first. _We still are_ , Arya thinks. But _Jon_ , Jon had grown worried. With every babe, the more she swelled, the more nervous he became for her. Arya sometimes thought that, when he looked at her, he saw his mother’s fate. But she is _her_ mother’s daughter, with Catelyn Tully’s hips meant for birthing children. She has survived the birthing bed three times and has birthed three healthy sons. Yet, because this one is a girl, Jon thinks it will somehow be different for her; that this time, the gods might take her from him.

 

~*~*~*~

 

His face as white as Ghost’s fur when he enters her bedroom. She grips the stone mantel of her fireplace in pain, but she manages a smile for her husband. They have changed her into a light, white nightdress and have braided her hair in preparation. And it will be _soon_ , Arya knows, but not soon enough.

Jon reaches for her, cradles her face in his warm hands. He kisses her forehead again, and again, and again. Her free hand finds his forearm and grasps at it, thankful for something to steady herself on. Her legs grow weak with the pain of her body opening for their babe, but Arya is determined to stand as long as she can bear it.

“We will do this together,” he tells her. “As we do everything.”

The noise she makes is part-sigh, part-laugh, part-hiss. “I’ll be doing the hardest of it.”

“You always do. You put up with me.”

 _Fool_ , she thinks. _Never has there been an easier soul to love_.

 

~*~*~*~

 

She contorts herself this way and that in the birthing chair, but no matter how she moves the pain does not yield. The only thing that brings her any relief is _pushing_. Arya shouts and pants and moans miserably over Jon’s gentle encouragements. The midwife moves her knees, poking and prodding and spreading her wider still.

As she bears down, the old woman tells her that the babe is coming. She is eager to be done with this, to hold a princess in her arms, so when the next contraction hits her, Arya puts all her strength behind it. The babe slips slowly from her into the midwife’s arms.

At the sound of her daughter’s cries, Arya feels herself tear up—from happiness, from exhaustion, from the look on Jon’s face. He is stunned by the red, squirming thing that they have cut from her. With each child, it is as if it is the first, and Jon is so in love that it makes her heart ache.

“Your Grace?” the midwife says to him, handing him a poorly swaddled bundle. “A daughter.”

“Lyra,” Arya tells them.

The babe’s name pulls him from his awestruck reverie, back to her. They had decided on her name moons ago. Jon nods and bends down next to her where she sits filthy in the chair.

“ _Thank you_ , my queen.” He kisses her sweaty, limp hand. “ _Arya_.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Hours later she wakes in her bedroom, clean and rested. It is a fight to open her eyes, yet she does eventually to find Jon standing with the babe near the window. They’ve cleaned and swaddled the little princess too, bundled her tiny body in furs so that she does not catch a chill from the cool, spring air.

When Jon turns towards her, their eyes meet and they both smile. Jon’s is as bright as the morning sun, where Arya’s is sleepy still. He looks down to their babe in his arms, then back at her again. Though her eyes threaten to shut and remain blurry from sleep, Arya can see the joy on his face plainly.

“She has the chubbiest cheeks,” Jon says. “I cannot stop kissing them.”

“She is a lucky girl then, to be so well loved by such a king.”

Jon joins her on her bed, letting her peer into the furs at their daughter’s face. Arya knows it already, knows it from those few moments earlier when she took the babe to breast to give her suck. Her breasts are full again, and Arya is eager to take little Lyra and feed her to ease their sweet aching. And she would, if it were not for the way Jon keeps her pressed against his chest, rocking her softly in his arms.


End file.
